Saturday, 3 May 2014

In Decemeber 2013 - Professor Matt de Camp and I were asked to debate whether social media was a waste of time for doctors in the Journal of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. You can read the full paper here and see some discussion on PubMed commons about it here. This is my part of the paper with hyperlinks. I should mention that JRCPE is an open access journal who allowed me to retain my copyright. This is therefore published here, along with the infographic and my slides, under a creative commons license so feel free to reuse and remix as you wish.

10 Reasons to have a social media presence

To connect

The landmark report on ‘Health professionals for a new century’ suggested that we need ‘locally responsive but
globally connected teams’
3
but lamented that ‘most
institutions are not sufficiently outward looking to
exploit the power of networking and connectivity for
mutual strengthening’.(3) But this is changing. It is now rare
to attend a forward-thinking event without being
encouraged to tweet with the conference hashtag. We
are our institutions, and we are leading the way; we are
making the connections.

To engage

Social media is not just about getting your message out. It
is also about listening. We can learn with patient leaders.( 4 )As Gilbert and Doughty, co-directors of the Centre for
Patient Leadership, describe ‘[w]hen patients can both
manage their own health and go on to develop the
confidence and skills to lead and influence others,
something special happens: new collaborative systems of
healthcare take shape and positive solutions emerge to
healthcare problems, locally and nationally.’ (4) Through their
blogs and tweets you can engage with them.

To inform

If you are trying to do things differently, changing the
way you and your team work, where can you tell
people about this? Consultant endocrinologist Partha
Kar uses his blog, NHS Sugar Doc, to communicate
how an award-winning team is involving patients in
redesigning their service, meeting the challenges of
modern healthcare.(5)

To reflect

Elin Roddy is a respiratory consultant. She also tweets
(@elinlowri). During ‘dying matters’ awareness week,
and prompted by discussions of end-of-life care on
Twitter, she decided to write her first blog post: a
reflection on how, during her working life, she has ‘been
involved with death in many different guises and in many
different ways.’ (6) Thirty eight people – health professionals
and patients – left comments to say how they had been
moved by her eloquent writing. She is now lead for end-of-life care in her trust and says this would not have
happened without her learning through social media.

To share

In a hospital in London a patient has the wrong foot
operated on because they put a compression stocking
on the wrong side. The checks and balances which the
nominally implemented surgical checklist should have
provided did not happen. (7) Fortunately the other foot
needed operating on too. After investigations were
completed the medical director of the trust gave
permission for an account to be shared through social
media. The story ‘Wrongfooted’ by anaesthetist Helgi Johnannson has been viewed more than 17,000 times. (7) When surgeon and medical director, Dermot Riordan,
read the story he wrote on his blog that he felt ‘déjà vu,
sadness and even anger’. (8)

A year ago nearly exactly the
same mistake had occurred where he works. He
describes the transparent and open approach that his
team took to learning about this incident but he
personally regrets that he did not share this learning
with others in the way that ‘Wrongfooted’ showed it
could be done. Social media is changing how we conceive
of dissemination.

To be challenged

Often the best way to learn is to be challenged. Earlier
this year people who had experienced mental health
care started tweeting their experiences using the tag
#DearMentalHealthProfessionals. (9) Along with appreciation
and thanks there were also tweets which expressed
how it felt to be let down by a system that is supposed
to help. To be able to change systems for the better we
need to work towards understanding, and that starts
with shifting our perspectives. Social media can help us
to do this.

To be supported

Sometimes we just need to know that we are not alone.
#TipsForNewDocs are short messages of advice for
newly graduated medics from doctors, other health
professionals and patients. Like many social media
activities it is hard to say who started this trend but
Guardian healthcare(10)and the GMC(11) have both used the
tag to support this important transition.

To learn

Free open access medical education – otherwise known
as FOAMed (13) is on the rise. In the past we used
databases to store and find these resources, but now we
are increasingly depending on the power of distributed
networks to help filter the best content for our needs.
New educational initiatives are starting every week in
social media. The case-based discussions of ECGclass (14) and Gasclass for anaesthesia (15) can give you a flavour of
what is achievable.

To inspire

Kate Granger is a doctor training in elderly medicine;
she is also terminally ill with a rare aggressive abdominal
sarcoma. During a recent hospital admission (16) she
noticed that too many of the staff she met did not
introduce themselves. She decided that something
needed to be done, so she wrote a blog post with a
simple idea – when health professionals meet patients
they should say ‘hello, my name is’. (17) People started
talking about her idea and doing what she asked. The
campaign has reached so many people that it is
mentioned in the Government’s response to the Francis Inquiry. (18)

Conclusion

Is social media a professionalism quagmire? Could your
professional reputation hang on as few as 140 characters?
Yes, norms are still being established but that means you
can shape them. The truth is that if you respect your
patients and your colleagues, like these pioneering
physicians, you have little to fear. Instead, you should be
feeling optimistic and excited that you can now easily tap
into a global community who can help you to be a better
doctor in a better system with your patients.